Originally posted by Draemos

Originally posted by Asheram

nice article but you painted a bad picture of f2p and went straight to swtor and tera as saviours

you shouldve mentioned battle of the immortals even if it was a small plug on the f2p side it is a graphically nice game with alot of stuff to do

unfortunately the closed beta ends today but the open beta starts on may 4th with no character wipes after that point if anyone is interested it is a nice game

 He painted a bad picture of F2P because that's all there is to paint of them in the western market.   They are exactly as he described them, and they will never be popular in the West.  Their business model is directly related to trying to swindle people out of money in order to buy an advantage... its a losing concept and it will never pick up and carry any significant wind in the West.

 There is only one game on the horizon that has the potential to challenge WoW (and actually its the only game I've ever actually believed had the potential in the first place)... thats SWTOR.

Bioware/EA is the only combination of coding talent and funding that has a chance of competing with Blizzard/Activision in the MMO market... and even then they still need  the popularity of the Starwars IP.

So I take it you havent paid any attention to Trion then? A company that is producing 3 extremely promising high quality mmos that are all bringing something new to the genre. One is an mmo that runs alongside a tv series, another is a fantasy mmo (Rift: Planes of Telara) that introduces dynamic content in which the players actions can change events in the game world for everyone (Guildwars 2 is the only other mmo I have seen which is trying that) and the other is the first mmorts that anyone has ever made. There literally is no game in existence which can compare to End of Nations. It truly will be the first of its kind.

On top of that Trion and Arenanet are actually focusing on what has been missing from mmos for a very long time. They are giving players plenty of reasons to come together in their games (massively multiplayer......does anyone remember what that means?) and also making their actions matter by allowing the players to shape the world they inhabit. Bioware in contrast are focusing on telling a story to each player which is the very thing that has been causing players to ignore each other and take the solo route in mmos. Stories are great and involving things in single player games but they really arent as neccessary or important in an mmo. Having things to do and reasons to interact with other human beings is what the focus of mmos should be.

I'm sure SWTOR will be a good game though as Bioware are great at making storytelling games. However I'm not sure that yet another story based mmo that lends itself to the style of a single player game will really stick with people for a particularly long time. Of course its Starwars so all the fans will rush at it like usual so I'm sure it will do pretty well for that reason alone. Regardless of the quality of SWTOR though Bioware is most definately NOT the only company that will be in a position to challenge Blizzard. There is too much competition coming up over the next year or two for that to be true.

Originally posted by Deadalon

Few things from an old WOW player here too.

First off... WOW is not just big.  It is big cause it has provided something that players are looking for.  None of the dying "giant" before WOW ever got close to the size cause they were not as "good" games (good in terms of what ppl were looking for in MMOs"

You are dismissing some points that are extremely important here.

First... a large number of people who came to WoW didn't know what a MMORPG even was, nor were they "looking for one". They wanted to play the newest Warcraft game. That it happened to be a MMORPG was incidental. Blizzard could have made a Warcraft based FPS and it would have attracted as huge a built-in fan-base. I think, frankly, WoW's initital success owes a lot to the work they'd done previously to earn that fan-base to begin with. Had the Warcraft series not been as good as it was, I don't think WoW would have done as well.

You also can't ignore the "phenomenon factor" wherein anything that becomes a huge deal (tickle-me-elmo dolls... furbies... cabbage patch dolls back in the 80s... etc. etc.) will attract a large number of people who wouldn't otherwise give them a second look, because they want to be "part of something".

A large part of WoW's popularity also comes from its easy approach to gameplay with lots of hand-holding, generous rewards aplenty for even the most menial accomplishment and barely a slap on the wrist for failure.

It's become a derogatory statement to say that WoW is "easy mode", but there is much truth to the statement, especially considering it was Blizzard's intention to create it that way. Whether that's good or bad depends on the individual.

Point is... While there's no denying WoW's success, it's far too "simple" to say it's simply because "it's more 'good" of a game than others". A number of factors contributed to WoW's success, not all of which were attributable to the game itself.

No other game in the forseeable future will be able to create a better blend of features - than what WOW has managed to.  Im sorry but ppl will just have to admit that by now.

Well that's not exactly a bold prediction... "nothing in the foreseeable future" is a rather limited frame of time, not to mention subjective. What's "foreseeable future" equate to? A few months? A year? Two years? Considering MMOs can take 2-3 years to develop alone, "foreseeable future" could be at least that long.

I've been playing Wow since 2005. I cleaned everything from MC to the heroic lich king ( not dead yet ). Casualclysm is the last straw for me, once we finish ICC I will quit WoW without any regrets and in my opinion and what I've heard from my guildmates so will many serious 25 man raiders.

I think the end of WoW isn't so far between Casualclysm and their new "next-gen" MMORPG, in 1 or 2 years it'll be done for.

Originally posted by AKASlaphappy

Originally posted by NightCloak

Meh...

WoW won for many reasons. And like other things, the product is greater than the sum of its parts.

WoW has:

• Never before seen levels of polish from the start
• Very regular updates
• In-depth lore and history
• Ease of accessiblility
• Plenty of in-game and out-of-game information
• Intuitive and unobtrusive gameplay

Thats to name a handful. There are more.

 

Also, people poke fun at Fireball 1, 2, 3... 47, 48...

 

But it serves a purpose. To the gamer its boring. To the non-gamer it makes sense. There are lots of little things that make the game easier to understand and play. My wife doesn't play video games but she would play WoW with me because she can understand WoW to the point she can enjoy it. Even though she has zero interest in video games in general.

 

The "WoW Killers" only seem to take a few items from the list and focus on that but never really pay attention to the market.

 

To what is high lighted in this post. I always wonder when I read comments like this if people have really bad memories or if they were really not there at the start. I am sorry but WoW was anything but polished at launch. There was tons of bugs that made the game crash, like harvesting any resource. Pick a flower = Crash, Mine a copper = Crash, try to kill boss troll outside of Sen'Jin Village = Crash. Of course this is not counting all of the server and login crashes that happened constantly for the first few months the game was out. I honestly was glad I rolled horde on Silverhand since the alliance land mass kept crashing. This was of course was at launch when there was not millions of people playing yet, in fact when I started there was a pretty low population on most of the servers.

I get really tired of posts like this one.  Posters that attempt to remember Wow at the beginning.  Yes there were a few bugs, but as usual they get over exaggerated.   E.G. resources, some did not work, but the game did not crash.  Some of the game for higher level things were not finished yet.  But I rarely crashed and the bugs were not that bothersome.

So exaggerate all you want, but those of us who know will point it out.

Originally posted by WSIMike

It's become a derogatory statement to say that WoW is "easy mode", but there is much truth to the statement, especially considering it was Blizzard's intention to create it that way. Whether that's good or bad depends on the individual.

I have this theory that WoW is being made easier and easier simply because it's old now and not important enough to the bulk of the player base to warrant endless wiping in murky dungeons. As an example, see the official forums (the European ones, anyway). There's hardly any traffic anymore, and even the recently announced changes for Cataclysm failed to make much of an impact. Some half-hearted protests, and that was it. When the game was hot, new topics would be trucked down to page 3 or 4 before anyone even got a chance to read it.

WoW is a good game, but it's not terribly exciting anymore. If the game was to require the same dedication as it once did, a lot of the subscribers might simply not bother.

That said, the release of a new expack is always a more intensive time, and it should be "worth it" for a month or two.

Originally posted by WSIMike

Originally posted by Deadalon

Few things from an old WOW player here too.

First off... WOW is not just big.  It is big cause it has provided something that players are looking for.  None of the dying "giant" before WOW ever got close to the size cause they were not as "good" games (good in terms of what ppl were looking for in MMOs"

You are dismissing some points that are extremely important here.

First... a large number of people who came to WoW didn't know what a MMORPG even was, nor were they "looking for one". They wanted to play the newest Warcraft game. That it happened to be a MMORPG was incidental. Blizzard could have made a Warcraft based FPS and it would have attracted as huge a built-in fan-base. I think, frankly, WoW's initital success owes a lot to the work they'd done previously to earn that fan-base to begin with. Had the Warcraft series not been as good as it was, I don't think WoW would have done as well.

You also can't ignore the "phenomenon factor" wherein anything that becomes a huge deal (tickle-me-elmo dolls... furbies... cabbage patch dolls back in the 80s... etc. etc.) will attract a large number of people who wouldn't otherwise give them a second look, because they want to be "part of something".

A large part of WoW's popularity also comes from its easy approach to gameplay with lots of hand-holding, generous rewards aplenty for even the most menial accomplishment and barely a slap on the wrist for failure.

It's become a derogatory statement to say that WoW is "easy mode", but there is much truth to the statement, especially considering it was Blizzard's intention to create it that way. Whether that's good or bad depends on the individual.

Point is... While there's no denying WoW's success, it's far too "simple" to say it's simply because "it's more 'good" of a game than others". A number of factors contributed to WoW's success, not all of which were attributable to the game itself.

No other game in the forseeable future will be able to create a better blend of features - than what WOW has managed to.  Im sorry but ppl will just have to admit that by now.

Well that's not exactly a bold prediction... "nothing in the foreseeable future" is a rather limited frame of time, not to mention subjective. What's "foreseeable future" equate to? A few months? A year? Two years? Considering MMOs can take 2-3 years to develop alone, "foreseeable future" could be at least that long.

+1.

Nice post :-)

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by AKASlaphappy

Originally posted by NightCloak

Meh...

WoW won for many reasons. And like other things, the product is greater than the sum of its parts.

WoW has:

• Never before seen levels of polish from the start
• Very regular updates
• In-depth lore and history
• Ease of accessiblility
• Plenty of in-game and out-of-game information
• Intuitive and unobtrusive gameplay

Thats to name a handful. There are more.

 

Also, people poke fun at Fireball 1, 2, 3... 47, 48...

 

But it serves a purpose. To the gamer its boring. To the non-gamer it makes sense. There are lots of little things that make the game easier to understand and play. My wife doesn't play video games but she would play WoW with me because she can understand WoW to the point she can enjoy it. Even though she has zero interest in video games in general.

 

The "WoW Killers" only seem to take a few items from the list and focus on that but never really pay attention to the market.

 

To what is high lighted in this post. I always wonder when I read comments like this if people have really bad memories or if they were really not there at the start. I am sorry but WoW was anything but polished at launch. There was tons of bugs that made the game crash, like harvesting any resource. Pick a flower = Crash, Mine a copper = Crash, try to kill boss troll outside of Sen'Jin Village = Crash. Of course this is not counting all of the server and login crashes that happened constantly for the first few months the game was out. I honestly was glad I rolled horde on Silverhand since the alliance land mass kept crashing. This was of course was at launch when there was not millions of people playing yet, in fact when I started there was a pretty low population on most of the servers.

I get really tired of posts like this one.  Posters that attempt to remember Wow at the beginning.  Yes there were a few bugs, but as usual they get over exaggerated.   E.G. resources, some did not work, but the game did not crash.  Some of the game for higher level things were not finished yet.  But I rarely crashed and the bugs were not that bothersome.

So exaggerate all you want, but those of us who know will point it out.

 You also have to remember that just because you didn't experience the crashes there are a lot of other people who did. It's not an exaggeration just because it never happened to you. Hell, the crashes hardly happened to me but a few of my friends had a hell of a time with them. The 'stuck-looting' bug was annoying to many players, so much so that there was a 30+ page thread on the forums in the first few days.

Thing is saying it was an exaggeration is like saying people who suffered through a hurricane, losing thier homes and loved ones are exaggerating because all you experienced was a little rain...

---

Originally posted by Loke666

---

Originally posted by elocke
... I think instead of looking at WoW as something huge and intimidating, companies should be looking at it as inspiration. Showing that this genre can really blow up with more elephants in the room if focus, time and polish as well as quality designing is allowed to flourish.

---

Devs have been looking on Wow for inspirations a long time now. Games like LOTRO and WAR was very inspired by Wow, a little bit too much actually.
Wow did many things right and that should be inspiring but the basic mechanics of the game (who is mostly taken from EQ) have been done too many times now.
Be inspired by the polish and how Blizzard always been good with their fans, do not try to rip the game off.

---

That's why I chose my wording carefully. I didn't say copy WoW or mimic WoW, I said be inspired by WoW. Basically what you said, copy the polish and fan comminication, the attention to detail that Blizzard applies to their games that makes them "feel" right. But do that with your own game mechanics and world lore, etc.

I think all the bashing of WOW is a really old. The game has been out for years now and people still go on and on about how lame it is and how easy it is and how it has ruined the genre with its hand holding. I think it is childish to keep on crying about it. WOW is like everything else that becomes popular and mainstream. There will always be those that will dislike the most popular whatever it is just because it is popular. It becomes almost a rite of passage to flame what is played the most, listenned to the most or watched the most. It has become internet lunch for the bitter. Like people think it makes them more hardcore to flame it like they think it makes them cool to say they like EVE.

   WOW appeals to alot of people for alot of reasons. The easy mode or hand holding or what ever is the flame of the month against WOW means nothing to the millions and millions of people who play it and love it. Removing the penalties that used to be common in the genre really helped the subs for the game because so many people work long hours, have families, have a social life, have school and really dont want to waste time on playing the penalties of a game but would rather,you know actually PLAY the game. It is the elephant in the room for a reason. Like it or love it or dislike it or hate it WOW changed the genre as a whole for the good. Millions of more people who never would have thought to play something more hardcore like EQ1 or AC1 have been brought into the MMO fold because of Blizzard. Those players may be those you find yourselves playing against in other games right now through the introduction to MMO's through WOW. Elephant be damned.  

So I take it you havent paid any attention to Trion then? A company that is producing 3 extremely promising high quality mmos that are all bringing something new to the genre. One is an mmo that runs alongside a tv series, another is a fantasy mmo (Rift: Planes of Telara) that introduces dynamic content in which the players actions can change events in the game world for everyone (Guildwars 2 is the only other mmo I have seen which is trying that) and the other is the first mmorts that anyone has ever made. There literally is no game in existence which can compare to End of Nations. It truly will be the first of its kind.

On top of that Trion and Arenanet are actually focusing on what has been missing from mmos for a very long time. They are giving players plenty of reasons to come together in their games (massively multiplayer......does anyone remember what that means?) and also making their actions matter by allowing the players to shape the world they inhabit. Bioware in contrast are focusing on telling a story to each player which is the very thing that has been causing players to ignore each other and take the solo route in mmos. Stories are great and involving things in single player games but they really arent as neccessary or important in an mmo. Having things to do and reasons to interact with other human beings is what the focus of mmos should be.

I'm sure SWTOR will be a good game though as Bioware are great at making storytelling games. However I'm not sure that yet another story based mmo that lends itself to the style of a single player game will really stick with people for a particularly long time. Of course its Starwars so all the fans will rush at it like usual so I'm sure it will do pretty well for that reason alone. Regardless of the quality of SWTOR though Bioware is most definately NOT the only company that will be in a position to challenge Blizzard. There is too much competition coming up over the next year or two for that to be true.

Yep, I've read all about them... Rift is the only one worth mentioning, and it doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of even tickling WoW.  It's SWTOR or nothing.  Rift will be amazingly lucky to break Aion numbers.

I'm not saying they will be good or bad games.  I don't have an opinion either way since the company hasn't actually released anything.  Rift looks good on paper, but then so do a lot of games... and the reality is far less impressive.  But your as goofy as the WAR and AOC fanboys if you think that company is going to achieve anything outside of mediocre numbers with any of their titles.

Sorry, but the truth is that if SWTOR fails to truly challenge WoW... the next game that is likely to actually challenge WoW will be another Blizzard MMO.

Originally posted by blueturtle13

WOW is like everything else that becomes popular and mainstream. There will always be those that will dislike the most popular whatever it is just because it is popular.

Not sure I follow you. The grudge people have against things going mainstream, is that the thing itself often completely changes character. When loads of new people come in, they start redefining what the genre is about, and all of a sudden you're seen as an old-fashioned oddball because you were there first and continue to like what you always liked before the transformation to mainstream happened.

I liked heavy metal in the early 80s. The reason I didn't care for Bon Jovi and the likes wasn't because it was popular, but because it had nothing at all to do with what heavy metal was to me. Iron Maiden became a mainstream act, but they managed to stay true to their roots, so I still like them. In the same vein, I don't care for what WoW is doing to the RPG genre, as these changes do absolutely nothing for me.

Originally posted by WSIMike

Originally posted by Deadalon

Few things from an old WOW player here too.

First off... WOW is not just big.  It is big cause it has provided something that players are looking for.  None of the dying "giant" before WOW ever got close to the size cause they were not as "good" games (good in terms of what ppl were looking for in MMOs"

You are dismissing some points that are extremely important here.

First... a large number of people who came to WoW didn't know what a MMORPG even was, nor were they "looking for one". They wanted to play the newest Warcraft game. That it happened to be a MMORPG was incidental. Blizzard could have made a Warcraft based FPS and it would have attracted as huge a built-in fan-base. I think, frankly, WoW's initital success owes a lot to the work they'd done previously to earn that fan-base to begin with. Had the Warcraft series not been as good as it was, I don't think WoW would have done as well.

You also can't ignore the "phenomenon factor" wherein anything that becomes a huge deal (tickle-me-elmo dolls... furbies... cabbage patch dolls back in the 80s... etc. etc.) will attract a large number of people who wouldn't otherwise give them a second look, because they want to be "part of something".

A large part of WoW's popularity also comes from its easy approach to gameplay with lots of hand-holding, generous rewards aplenty for even the most menial accomplishment and barely a slap on the wrist for failure.

It's become a derogatory statement to say that WoW is "easy mode", but there is much truth to the statement, especially considering it was Blizzard's intention to create it that way. Whether that's good or bad depends on the individual.

Point is... While there's no denying WoW's success, it's far too "simple" to say it's simply because "it's more 'good" of a game than others". A number of factors contributed to WoW's success, not all of which were attributable to the game itself.

No other game in the forseeable future will be able to create a better blend of features - than what WOW has managed to.  Im sorry but ppl will just have to admit that by now.

Well that's not exactly a bold prediction... "nothing in the foreseeable future" is a rather limited frame of time, not to mention subjective. What's "foreseeable future" equate to? A few months? A year? Two years? Considering MMOs can take 2-3 years to develop alone, "foreseeable future" could be at least that long.

I bought EQ and played it the month before WOW came out.  It just wasnt' good enough game.  It was that simple.  I did not like Warcraft games but I played MMOs before that...  I dont know where you get the idea into your head that WOW was only played by Warcraft fans. 

About your "easy mode".  MMOs are games.. they are NOT work... and neither are they your only life.  Many of the old MMO fans consider MMORPGs to be their only life - forgetting that they should be about fun first and foremost.   Thats probalby the thing that irritates ppl the most... WOW IS actually fun while many other MMOs are grindy and repetitive.  Lets look at WAR and AOC again.. they offer pretty much the exact same questing mecanics as WOW did 3 years ago.  WOW moved on and created a new lvl with flying mounts - they are still expanding on it.. at the same time AOC and WAR are still on the gound doing the same crap over and over... Still fixing what was badly broken at launch.

Originally posted by Deadalon

Originally posted by WSIMike

Originally posted by Deadalon

Few things from an old WOW player here too.

First off... WOW is not just big.  It is big cause it has provided something that players are looking for.  None of the dying "giant" before WOW ever got close to the size cause they were not as "good" games (good in terms of what ppl were looking for in MMOs"

You are dismissing some points that are extremely important here.

First... a large number of people who came to WoW didn't know what a MMORPG even was, nor were they "looking for one". They wanted to play the newest Warcraft game. That it happened to be a MMORPG was incidental. Blizzard could have made a Warcraft based FPS and it would have attracted as huge a built-in fan-base. I think, frankly, WoW's initital success owes a lot to the work they'd done previously to earn that fan-base to begin with. Had the Warcraft series not been as good as it was, I don't think WoW would have done as well.

You also can't ignore the "phenomenon factor" wherein anything that becomes a huge deal (tickle-me-elmo dolls... furbies... cabbage patch dolls back in the 80s... etc. etc.) will attract a large number of people who wouldn't otherwise give them a second look, because they want to be "part of something".

A large part of WoW's popularity also comes from its easy approach to gameplay with lots of hand-holding, generous rewards aplenty for even the most menial accomplishment and barely a slap on the wrist for failure.

It's become a derogatory statement to say that WoW is "easy mode", but there is much truth to the statement, especially considering it was Blizzard's intention to create it that way. Whether that's good or bad depends on the individual.

Point is... While there's no denying WoW's success, it's far too "simple" to say it's simply because "it's more 'good" of a game than others". A number of factors contributed to WoW's success, not all of which were attributable to the game itself.

No other game in the forseeable future will be able to create a better blend of features - than what WOW has managed to.  Im sorry but ppl will just have to admit that by now.

Well that's not exactly a bold prediction... "nothing in the foreseeable future" is a rather limited frame of time, not to mention subjective. What's "foreseeable future" equate to? A few months? A year? Two years? Considering MMOs can take 2-3 years to develop alone, "foreseeable future" could be at least that long.

I bought EQ and played it the month before WOW came out.  It just wasnt' good enough game.  It was that simple.  I did not like Warcraft games but I played MMOs before that...  I dont know where you get the idea into your head that WOW was only played by Warcraft fans. 

About your "easy mode".  MMOs are games.. they are NOT work... and neither are they your only life.  Many of the old MMO fans consider MMORPGs to be their only life - forgetting that they should be about fun first and foremost.   Thats probalby the thing that irritates ppl the most... WOW IS actually fun while many other MMOs are grindy and repetitive.  Lets look at WAR and AOC again.. they offer pretty much the exact same questing mecanics as WOW did 3 years ago.  WOW moved on and created a new lvl with flying mounts - they are still expanding on it.. at the same time AOC and WAR are still on the gound doing the same crap over and over... Still fixing what was badly broken at launch.

Fun is subjective. I don't find trivial unchallenging gameplay fun. I find it boring. I find WoW's easy dungeon zergs with no CC, no chance of death boring. I play games to enjoy over coming a challenge. At this point in WoW's life there is no challenge left.

If I wanted to instant win, I wouldn't even play a game. I would rather lay back and watch a movie.

Originally posted by qombi

Originally posted by Deadalon

Originally posted by WSIMike

Originally posted by Deadalon

Few things from an old WOW player here too.

First off... WOW is not just big.  It is big cause it has provided something that players are looking for.  None of the dying "giant" before WOW ever got close to the size cause they were not as "good" games (good in terms of what ppl were looking for in MMOs"

You are dismissing some points that are extremely important here.

First... a large number of people who came to WoW didn't know what a MMORPG even was, nor were they "looking for one". They wanted to play the newest Warcraft game. That it happened to be a MMORPG was incidental. Blizzard could have made a Warcraft based FPS and it would have attracted as huge a built-in fan-base. I think, frankly, WoW's initital success owes a lot to the work they'd done previously to earn that fan-base to begin with. Had the Warcraft series not been as good as it was, I don't think WoW would have done as well.

You also can't ignore the "phenomenon factor" wherein anything that becomes a huge deal (tickle-me-elmo dolls... furbies... cabbage patch dolls back in the 80s... etc. etc.) will attract a large number of people who wouldn't otherwise give them a second look, because they want to be "part of something".

A large part of WoW's popularity also comes from its easy approach to gameplay with lots of hand-holding, generous rewards aplenty for even the most menial accomplishment and barely a slap on the wrist for failure.

It's become a derogatory statement to say that WoW is "easy mode", but there is much truth to the statement, especially considering it was Blizzard's intention to create it that way. Whether that's good or bad depends on the individual.

Point is... While there's no denying WoW's success, it's far too "simple" to say it's simply because "it's more 'good" of a game than others". A number of factors contributed to WoW's success, not all of which were attributable to the game itself.

No other game in the forseeable future will be able to create a better blend of features - than what WOW has managed to.  Im sorry but ppl will just have to admit that by now.

Well that's not exactly a bold prediction... "nothing in the foreseeable future" is a rather limited frame of time, not to mention subjective. What's "foreseeable future" equate to? A few months? A year? Two years? Considering MMOs can take 2-3 years to develop alone, "foreseeable future" could be at least that long.

I bought EQ and played it the month before WOW came out.  It just wasnt' good enough game.  It was that simple.  I did not like Warcraft games but I played MMOs before that...  I dont know where you get the idea into your head that WOW was only played by Warcraft fans. 

About your "easy mode".  MMOs are games.. they are NOT work... and neither are they your only life.  Many of the old MMO fans consider MMORPGs to be their only life - forgetting that they should be about fun first and foremost.   Thats probalby the thing that irritates ppl the most... WOW IS actually fun while many other MMOs are grindy and repetitive.  Lets look at WAR and AOC again.. they offer pretty much the exact same questing mecanics as WOW did 3 years ago.  WOW moved on and created a new lvl with flying mounts - they are still expanding on it.. at the same time AOC and WAR are still on the gound doing the same crap over and over... Still fixing what was badly broken at launch.

Fun is subjective. I don't find trivial unchallenging gameplay fun. I find it boring. I find WoW's easy dungeon zergs with no CC, no chance of death boring. I play games to enjoy over coming a challenge. At this point in WoW's life there is no challenge left.

If I wanted to instant win, I wouldn't even play a game. I would rather lay back and watch a movie.

Again - your kind of fun is the old days MMOs - Those that had 100k ppl playing.  Plenty of those around now too... noone forcing you to play WOW.  I just dont understand why you got the urge to tell the masses that their game is the problem - When its not. 

But I agree with you that the dungeon runs in WOTLK are to easy.  Hopefully we will see  some real heroic versions in Cata. But...RPGs are ALOT about character progression... Thats the part that Bioware have been lacking in their RPGs in some ways.  It might be a problem in SW too.

Originally posted by Deadalon

Originally posted by qombi

Originally posted by Deadalon

I bought EQ and played it the month before WOW came out.  It just wasnt' good enough game.  It was that simple.  I did not like Warcraft games but I played MMOs before that...  I dont know where you get the idea into your head that WOW was only played by Warcraft fans. 

About your "easy mode".  MMOs are games.. they are NOT work... and neither are they your only life.  Many of the old MMO fans consider MMORPGs to be their only life - forgetting that they should be about fun first and foremost.   Thats probalby the thing that irritates ppl the most... WOW IS actually fun while many other MMOs are grindy and repetitive.  Lets look at WAR and AOC again.. they offer pretty much the exact same questing mecanics as WOW did 3 years ago.  WOW moved on and created a new lvl with flying mounts - they are still expanding on it.. at the same time AOC and WAR are still on the gound doing the same crap over and over... Still fixing what was badly broken at launch.

Fun is subjective. I don't find trivial unchallenging gameplay fun. I find it boring. I find WoW's easy dungeon zergs with no CC, no chance of death boring. I play games to enjoy over coming a challenge. At this point in WoW's life there is no challenge left.

If I wanted to instant win, I wouldn't even play a game. I would rather lay back and watch a movie.

Again - your kind of fun is the old days MMOs - Those that had 100k ppl playing.  Plenty of those around now too... noone forcing you to play WOW.  I just dont understand why you got the urge to tell the masses that their game is the problem - When its not. 

But I agree with you that the dungeon runs in WOTLK are to easy.  Hopefully we will see  some real heroic versions in Cata. But...RPGs are ALOT about character progression... Thats the part that Bioware have been lacking in their RPGs in some ways.  It might be a problem in SW too.

It's all true. People play MMO's to have fun, and fun is subjective.

Some people like the smooth, easy-ride for fun. Some people like challenging gameplay and the game they're playing to offer challenges they need to overcome. That's why single player games have several difficulty settings, because some gamers like to play on the harder modes, modes that other gamers would find too frustrating and detriment to their fun.

Some people have gotten so used to the typical flavor and gameplay of the MMO they're playing that they don't like any other MMO that hasn't that style of gameplay. Others don't like playing the same MMO for years doing the same things over and over, because they don't think that's fun. Some people get most of their fun from the community they're in, regardless what MMO they're playing in at the moment.

See? Everyone needs something else to have their fun in gaming. It's no problem if you can only find the fun in the MMO you're currently playing, or if you dislike other MMO's. That's why it's lucky that there are so many MMO's available and coming, so we can all seek our own fun in games. Thank god that we're not all the same with exactly the same taste.

Originally posted by parasitehill

Originally posted by fyerwall

Originally posted by Deadalon

WOW is a social game.  This is a key to its success.  There are alot of old school MMO gamers out here that hate WOW - cause they are not looking for socializing with other ppl to the same degree that WOW is offering.

 

 The highlighted part is a bit off. As a social game WoW has probably the least amount of socializing going on. No one hardly talks in groups (pulling, AFK, OOM, LOL, BRB =/= socializing). You even try to start a conversation in pugs and you are met with the sound of crickets for the entire 15 minutes it takes to clear the instance. The only real time you get any socializing in a group is when an item drops and people start arguing over who gets it...

Agree with your highlighted part - I don't even know what is meant here by wow is so social people don't like it. I think wow used to be social like 5 years ago - but now everyone is so nasty and mean. And the worst part is that blizzard does absolutely nothing to police players. 3 hour bans are laughable! And that's if they even do anything at all. Also, I haven't gotten a GM in game since BC first came out. Now the only response you get is a pre-written copied and pasted script. With all that money - you think they could at least keep it enjoyable for the people lining their pockets by keeping all of the rotten ones under control.

But what is socializing? To some people it is to blabber in global chat about the soccer match in their own language. This is annoying enough perhaps for Americans, but in Europe with dozens of languages, it quickly becomes the hallmark of anti-social behavior.

Here is a hint, if I was intrested in the score of a match, I would be watching, not playing. 

If you want to see real non-socializing, get into an asian F2P mmo. EVERYbody is solo all the time. For some, the "social" in WoW is the working together part. Not blabbing like a teenage girl.

And to some, just working together mostly silent is all ready for to social. They just want to kill stuff, fast with a minimum of fuzz and everyone else should piss off.

And frankly, you could wonder why any of them play a MMO. The chatters should just go to IRC, the middle group is better suited to Multi-Player games and the latter needs to be locked up.

Yet somehow, a MMO has to cater to all of them, or face the fury that is nerd rage. 

The forum is rife with it. "SW:TOR better be free to play" Or what? You not going to play? Like Bioware cares about your penniless arse.

"It must have PK" because every other game with PK has been such a stellar success? Yes, every new MMO company wishes for their game to fade into obscurity faster then a porn star.

"I won't play until their is a demo out" well, demo's cost resources and most game companies struggle at launch to cater to all paying customers at once. Non-paying can wait a bit.

MMO's are hard to do. You need to create a game that lasts for months, caters for all kinds of people and be good enough to be payed for so you can continue development. Blizzard got it right and everyone else didn't.

It is kinda the same way Microsoft won with DOS, it was hardly the most advanced OS out there, but everyone else from IBM to Apple and Amiga screwed up so badly that MS was the winner by default. It is as if you had horse race and the all the other races knocked on the butchers door asking for his special on horse steak.

WoW is not the elephant because it is so big, but because everyone is so small. Think about it, there are 7 billion people on this planet, and 10 million of them play WoW. That is NOT a lot. WoW is a mouse in the room that is the world, but its competition are fleas.

Ok, I'm going to say it, because I'm in an abnormally rude mood today (so my apologies in advance ).

WoW is too big, and we should all be looking for something else to play?  Correct me if I'm wrong, but is that the gist of your article?

Wasn't this being written about 2+ years ago?

This only shows that not only MMOs, but ARTICLES about MMOs have become stale and repetitive.

The industry as a whole has gone to hell in a handbasket.

If you need me for anything, I'll be on DOSBox playing Panzer General.

I'll put my "polite" hat back on now.  Thank you.

Originally posted by utopium

Originally posted by blueturtle13

WOW is like everything else that becomes popular and mainstream. There will always be those that will dislike the most popular whatever it is just because it is popular.

Not sure I follow you. The grudge people have against things going mainstream, is that the thing itself often completely changes character. When loads of new people come in, they start redefining what the genre is about, and all of a sudden you're seen as an old-fashioned oddball because you were there first and continue to like what you always liked before the transformation to mainstream happened.

 

I liked heavy metal in the early 80s. The reason I didn't care for Bon Jovi and the likes wasn't because it was popular, but because it had nothing at all to do with what heavy metal was to me. Iron Maiden became a mainstream act, but they managed to stay true to their roots, so I still like them. In the same vein, I don't care for what WoW is doing to the RPG genre, as these changes do absolutely nothing for me.

 Changing character is not the definition of mainstream only sometimes is that the case. The Hangover was a bigtime mainstream comedy that millions of people paid to see but it didnt change it's character lol it is what it is.WOW  didnt " go mainstream" they are or they are not. Your heavy metal anology is off the mark though sorry. Bon Jovi was not heavy metal it was pop rock. The Who was heavier than they were. Maiden was a sub genre of heavy metal they are prog metal.( fear of the Dark true to their roots? ugh. Even the band had regrets about that) So maybe WOW is just a pop MMO. It is what it is. To think Blizzard would produce anything else is silly. That is what Blizz has always done. They make lite versions of everything they do. Strategy? Starcraft.Warcraft. Very cool but not the deepest strategy titles around. RPG? Diablo. ok hack and slash but not the deepest in the actual, you know, rpg elements. MMO? WOW not too bad fun and charming but not the deepest gaming experience. Thats like flaming Clapton for playing the blues or Vinnie M. for having classical influence in his guitar playing. It is what it is. To think otherwise is silly ;)

Originally posted by blueturtle13

 Changing character is not the definition of mainstream only sometimes is that the case. The Hangover was a bigtime mainstream comedy that millions of people paid to see but it didnt change it's character lol it is what it is.WOW  didnt " go mainstream" they are or they are not. Your heavy metal anology is off the mark though sorry. Bon Jovi was not heavy metal it was pop rock. The Who was heavier than they were. Maiden was a sub genre of heavy metal they are prog metal.( fear of the Dark true to their roots? ugh. Even the band had regrets about that) So maybe WOW is just a pop MMO. It is what it is. To think Blizzard would produce anything else is silly. That is what Blizz has always done. They make lite versions of everything they do. Strategy? Starcraft.Warcraft. Very cool but not the deepest strategy titles around. RPG? Diablo. ok hack and slash but not the deepest in the actual, you know, rpg elements. MMO? WOW not too bad fun and charming but not the deepest gaming experience. Thats like flaming Clapton for playing the blues or Vinnie M. for having classical influence in his guitar playing. It is what it is. To think otherwise is silly ;)

Where I grew up, Bon Jovi was certainly part of the mainstream "heavy metal" boom, in which people who couldn't have named a single Black Sabbath or Judas Priest tune if their lives depended on it, suddenly grew their hair long and proclaimed themselves to be "heavy". If it was different where you were, you should be thankful. I haven't followed Maiden all that closely (I'm one of the few who liked the Di'Anno period best), but the stuff I have heard has been reasonable. Anywho - the analogy wasn't meant to be perfect, only to exemplify that it isn't the necessarily the popularity itself that is a turn-off.

As for Blizzard, I know what they do, and no matter how many new players they bring into the gaming market, I'd rather they didn't exist, because their idea of gaming sucks. I like my RPGs nice and slow and turn based, and I don't need no steenkin' badges, achievements and other e-peen enhancers to enjoy my games. Yet, that's whats happening across the board, as the game producers tune in to the needs of the now mainstream market. So, I still don't see how the influx of all these hipsters have benefitted my gaming, or how they haven't redefined the genre itself. Quality RPGs are now so few and far between, that it's really hard to sustain computer gaming as a hobby. Blizzard will of course continue to be Blizzard - just don't ask me to like it.

If I said it once. I say it again. World of Warcraft is a stain on the mmo canvas. They say other mmo are clones of WOW, but is'nt WOW a clone of  other mmos it self. I still play  WoW. But man am I dying for something to kill the giant that is WOW sitting on the still living victums tha make up it's throne.